Mac'n Cheese
by The Kerl
Summary: Picks up after "47 Seconds," and explores what may have happened if Kate found out that Rick overheard the interrogation. Caskett. T for now, may change later.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I didn't like the way that "47 Seconds" ended, **_**at all**_**, so I wrote this as a response. I thought about scrapping it, but I also felt that the season finale was lacking, so here you go.**

**Obviously, Caskett is not mine. Enjoy!**

* * *

By 2:13am Rick Castle had given up any hope of falling asleep. He rolled out of bed and trudged down to the kitchen. Staring blankly into the confines of the bright refrigerator light numbed him somewhat. "I need comfort food," he mumbled to himself. Ice cream? No, Alexis had finished off his carton of X-treme Moosetracks and he didn't like anything else they had in the freezer. There were Oreos lying around somewhere…Aha!

He reached around the Oreos and pulled out one of the emergency blue boxes. He definitely had the blues. Hopefully the extra work required—if boiling water and mixing cheese actually amounted to work—would help take his mind off of things. He filled the sauce pan with water and dialed the knob on the stove. A bubble rose to the surface of the water and burst, producing a pattern of ripples that spread to the edge of the pan and stilled. Rick identified with the bubble, a lone disturbance in the deep that settled after a while, leaving no trace of its existence behind.

That wasn't supposed to happen when you confessed your love to someone. That wasn't supposed to happen to him.

But it had.

Rick went to the fridge and pulled out a jug of milk and a bottle of chocolate sauce, hoping to keep his hands busy before he tossed the noodles into the water. Busy was good, and chocolate milk was basically happiness in a cup. The spoon rattled loudly against the glass as he stirred and Rick had to remind himself that taking his anger out on a glass would only wake up his mother and Alexis, who would both tell him that he needed to talk to…to _her_. Taking a sip he looked at the pan. Nothing. No more bubbles. He cursed his literary mind: this was physics and _not_ a story. The placid water wasn't meant to symbolize Beckett's feelings for him. The water simply wasn't boiling. Maybe he'd put in too much water. Yeah, must be it. The more water in the pan, the longer it would take to boil. Physics. Not psychology. Physics.

His cup was drained and still no bubbles. He made himself another glass of chocolate milk and checked the pan again. Tiny bubbles, but no boiling.

Rick focused on his breathing, inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, exhaling, until the tightness in his chest began to loosen. His heart was pounding and his eyes blurred of their own accord. This reaction angered him—she had no idea that he was standing in the kitchen in the middle of the night crying over her. And why should he cry? Yes, he loved her. Everyone knew that. Apparently _she_ knew that, despite her lies. But if she'd really cared about him—even as a friend—she would have put him out of his misery, right?

_So you went and lost your heart to a heartless _bitch. His mind supplied the lines, but in his heart he knew that she wasn't heartless. Or a bitch, really. She was…perfect.

And she lied to him.

A single tear rolled down his cheek, but he refused to acknowledge it. Instead he registered the hissing sound issuing from the stove top and he up-ended the macaroni into the pan. The wooden spoon trembled in the water, but his hands calmed as he found a relaxing pattern to trace in the water. Up down, back to the middle, up to the right, back, down to the left, back, up, down, loop, loop, up, down, back to the middle…he paused, realizing what it was he was tracing. K B.

He momentarily abandoned the noodles and made himself another glass of chocolate milk, contemplating spiking it. If he got himself good and drunk then he wouldn't have to worry about the hurricane his thoughts had turned into after finishing the bombing case. Knocking himself out would be good. After all, it wasn't his fault that she lied to him. Or was it? His eyes blurred again but he refused to allow himself to break down. Another tear traced the path of the first and he ignored it, too. No, drinking wasn't going to fix his problem, and for some reason he felt that he needed to confront the pain head on, as though he deserved it.

How long had the noodles been boiling? They didn't look done yet, so he continued stirring as he thought back over the past few months for the tenth time that evening. Obviously—he forced himself to think her name—_Kate_ had a reason to distrust him, even to dislike him. Time and again she'd told him to stay away from her mother's case, and time and again he'd ignored her. He broke through her walls without giving it a second thought, and a number of times she lost her temper and said she never wanted to see him again. But that was _before_ they'd managed to track down Raglan. After realizing just how involved and complex the real story was, she'd seemed to appreciate his prying. She hadn't pushed him away when he'd pulled her out of the hanger before Montgomery was shot, either, so he'd assumed that things were on their way to becoming…well, more.

Rick guessed the noodles were done and flipped the stove off with one hand while he reached for the strainer with the other. Steam rose from the sink as he poured out the contents of the pan, bouncing the strainer every so often to sift the noodles. He dumped the macaroni back in the pan and felt his heart sink a little more: for some reason the sight of plain macaroni always depressed him. Grabbing the rest of the supplies from the refrigerator and taking a long drink of his virgin chocolate milk, Rick finished preparing his snack.

The cheese powder lumped together when he stirred, reminding him that he hadn't added butter.

He corrected his mistake, dumped it all in a big mixing bowl and relocated to the sofa, where he pulled a blanket over his head before he began eating his now lukewarm comfort food. Always one to eat mac'n cheese with a fork, he took morbid delight in spearing the tiny noodles.

After five bites he could feel the food mixing with the chocolate milk in his stomach, but he kept eating. He described the scene in his head, paying particular attention to the gritty, tasteless mush in his mouth. It seemed to have lost any temperature at all, along with its smell. It simply existed in the bowl, there for him alone to devour and otherwise without purpose. He ate until he could feel its solid weight in his stomach. Bile rose in his throat but he kept it down, his eyes blurring again. The bowl safely on the coffee table, Rick pulled the blanket tighter around himself, as if he could shut out the rest of the world. _She_ was out there, somewhere.

He'd known from the beginning that his feelings for Kate hadn't been welcome or reciprocated…much. He'd _known_ that, but still he'd followed where she went and hoped he could change her mind. At some point they'd become friends, bonding over the highs and lows that came with police work, and he had appreciated that she'd finally taken the time to look past the public façade and gotten to know the real Rick Castle. He wasn't sure, but he thought it was safe to say that apart from his mother and daughter, no one knew him as well as Kate did.

Not even his ex-wives. Gina had been too serious to put up with Rick's inextinguishable inner child, Meredith had been too much of a child herself, and neither of them had evoked the emotional response in him that Kate had. Kate was serious enough to balance out his immaturity, but fun enough to play along with him. She kept him guessing, a trait that intrigued both the author and the man.

And yet she'd still lied to him. The tears fell freely, a fact he blamed on sleep deprivation and emotional strain, further complicated by a severe tummy ache. His breathing was even and he remained still, despite the fact that he was tensed to the point his muscles were beginning to cramp. Eyes stinging, knees twinging, back aching, the fetal position was anything but comforting. Real men weren't supposed to break like this, however the very thought of straightening himself out left him with a sense of vertigo, as though unclenching his hands from his shins would break the tie that prevented his body from fading to nothingness. In this moment, Richard Castle could care less that he was a grown adult, a man known for his spine-tingling ability to weave best-selling stories out of nothing more than keen observation and words, words that seemed to reshape the world by creating more heroes and monsters. No, all that mattered at that moment was the realization that the only words that would make him feel any better could never come from himself.

What he needed was an explanation, something that would help him make sense of her deception. While Kate was nowhere as blunt as Lanie, he still felt sure that she would have no problem turning him down. It wouldn't be the first time she'd told him to get lost.

Maybe she was scared of hurting his feelings. If she valued their friendship as much as he did—and as much as he _thought_ she did—then she would be reluctant to flat out turn him down. Playing the amnesia card gave her a quick and easy out and put the blame on him for not repeating his declaration. That was certainly a possibility, but Rick wasn't sure he was ready to accept all of the blame there. He thought back to their talk on the playground after the book signing. She'd told him that she wouldn't be in a position to enter a serious relationship until her mother's murder was solved. Whether that was true or not was unclear, but she _had_ said it, so surely that must have meant that she wanted him to back off for the time being, fake amnesia or not.

He hated to think that she was cowardly enough to sink to that level of deception to avoid even considering a relationship with him, but nothing else fit. There was also no way that he would be able to approach her about it, as experience had shown him that Beckett tended to lash out when she was cornered.

For a moment he allowed himself to step out on the proverbial ledge and hope. His imagination took off at a sprint and attempted to characterize his current predicament. If Kate _did_ care…if she _did_ want something more from him…maybe she really wasn't ready.


	2. Chapter 2

"Still no word from Castle?" asked Esposito. Startled that she'd been caught staring at the empty chair—_his_ chair—Kate looked up with wide eyes. "You try callin' him?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Kate hated that look of his, the one that flat out told her that she was a terrible person. How could Esposito judge her when she wasn't sure what the problem was? She bristled in response to his gaze, but waved her hand dismissively through the air, as though she could fool him with such a simple gesture. "C'mon, Espo—he's probably just catching up on sleep. If there was something wrong, he'd call." _Unless he's been kidnapped_, came the errant thought. She shook those thoughts from her head and checked her phone again. The sinking feeling in her gut inclined her to agree with her fellow detective.

Esposito saw it all: the concern, crippled by her unwillingness to act on her feelings lest she appear weak. "You so sure about that?"

Her eyes flickered to his as she tapped at the screen. "Huh?"

"I'm just sayin', he didn't look right yesterday. If something's up and he didn't already tell you about it, are you so sure he'll call?"

Kate dropped her guard and blurted out the first thought that came to mind. "What do you mean he didn't look right?"

"You didn't notice?"

"No, I just…But there's no reason he wouldn't call…" She trailed off again, staring at her empty inbox. No text, no message, no email. Not a missed call notification. The clues didn't add up. Normally when he skipped out on her, it was because he was on a roll and didn't want to lose the writing streak. To the best of her knowledge he hadn't started work on a new story any time lately, so it was unlikely that he was busy writing. If he'd had a meeting with his publisher or someone, he would have been complaining about it the past few days, and then he would have called her before the meeting to ask for an excuse to bail. "It's probably just a personal thing."

Esposito inclined his head in her direction. "My money's on you."

His words didn't fully register with her and soon she was distracted by Ryan's entrance. He walked in carrying a few files and a donut. Upon taking note of the tense atmosphere he shoved the donut into his mouth before he could be asked to comment. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled apologetically at his partner, who pointed a finger towards the glaringly empty chair next to their boss's desk. Kate's chin tilted upwards as though she would find the answer written on the ceiling. "Yeah, Martha probably needed him to –"

"No, Beckett. I meant that I'm betting his beef is with YOU."

"Mmhmm," sputtered Ryan.

She blinked before staring both men down. "I'm sorry—is there something going on that I should know about?"

At that moment Captain Gates peeked her head through the door. She made eye contact with Kate and ducked back into the room for a moment before emerging with a digital recorder. "Detective Beckett, I'd like to have word with you and your team before you go home, if I may." Ryan and Esposito circled in behind Kate's desk to face their eerily silent captain. The woman quirked an eyebrow and wielded the device in her hand. "Beckett, I just went over this recording from the other day. Bobby Lopez?" Kate nodded, wondering if she was being called out for being too rough on the guy. That would be a first. "I have to say that I was a little disturbed by what I heard."

"Sir, I—" Gates hit the play button and the air was filled with the words from the argument. Her breath caught when she heard her words shouted back to her: _I remember every second of it_. So, this is what she was in trouble for. Gates stopped the recording. "Well?"

Only Ryan showed any sign of surprise. "Wait, but I thought you—you really remember?"

Kate couldn't find a friendly face in the room. Ryan was clearly hurt, Gates disapproving, and Esposito…he probably knew more than the rest of them, but it was clear he was upset by her behavior as well. She took a deep breath and took on her familiar academy airs, the ones that she hid behind when she didn't know what to say.

When the detective said nothing, Gates lost her temper. "Detective Beckett, your incident report says that you have no recollection of the shooting, that you passed out. Are you telling me that you've been lying this whole time?"

"No, sir."

"Oh really? Because to me it looks like you falsified your report to withhold evidence." Kate felt the guys shift behind her, probably antsy about the information they actually _were_ withholding about their former captain. Gates noticed. "You two wouldn't happen to know anything more about this, would you?"

"No, sir. She told us she didn't remember anything, either." Ryan's voice was steady, though she could still hear the emotion behind the words.

"Esposito?"

"No, sir. I knew that she was still shaken up about the shooting and I had my suspicions, but she never told me anything different." There was that look again.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself, Detective Beckett?"

Kate studied her hands while she regained her composure. Taking a deep breath, she met her captain's gaze. "Sir, I know that I shouldn't have lied in my report, but I passed my psych eval without any problems, and I continued seeing the psychologist afterwards as a precaution. If he'd felt that I wasn't fit for duty, he would have said something to you."

Gates waited a beat before nodding. "Mark my words—you pull something like this again and you won't be able to get a cup of coffee without so much as notifying me first. Am I understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Now go home. All of you." Gates searched Kate's face until she was satisfied the detective had heard her, then she grabbed the recorder and headed back to her office.

Ryan let out a breath once their boss was out of sight. "Seriously, Beckett?"

She whipped around in her chair. "God, guys—it's not that big a deal! I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth before, but I don't understand why everyone's overreacting like this. It's not like I—What, Javi?"

"Look, I get it. You needed time to deal with it and you didn't want us to baby you. But we," he gestured between himself and Ryan, "are on your team, and you can't just keep that kinda stuff from us like that."

"Yeah," quipped Ryan. "Even under those circumstances, you should know better."

They were right, of course. Kate opened her mouth, ready to grovel if she had to, but Esposito cut her off and nodded towards the still-empty chair next to her desk. "As much as you need to make it up to us, we aren't the one that you need to suck up to. Damn, I can't believe he didn't say anything to us."

Kate froze, but the guys didn't seem to notice. Instead, Ryan was too curious about this new info. "Wait—Castle knew?"

"Yeah. He showed up the other day asking for Beckett right after we brought Bobby in. He was in the observation room during the interrogation. He heard it all live."

"No wonder he was acting weird yesterday."

"You noticed it, too?"

"Of course I did—he didn't smile all day! But I can't believe he didn't tell us."

Seemingly forgotten, Kate barely heard their conversation. She thought back over the past few days, recalling acerbic comments and the caustic looks he'd shot her way. At the time they hadn't made any sense to her and she'd chalked it up to a lack of sleep on both their parts.

But if he'd been observing the interrogation, then he knew she'd lied about the shooting.

He knew she remembered what he'd told her.

"Listen, it's 3:30 in the morning. I'll see you guys tomorrow."

As they watched her leave, Ryan whispered to Esposito, "She better be goin' to Castle's place."

"Dude, it's the middle of the night."

"Yeah, and if something had to wake you up in the middle of the night, wouldn't you want _that_?"

"Bekcett?"

Ryan's eyes widened as he realized the implication. "What? No! I meant, you know, the woman you love showing up on your doorstep kinda thing." Esposito nodded, but the smirk wouldn't leave his face. "Stop it—I love Jenny. I married Jenny. Jen-ny."

"And I still have no idea what she sees in you."

"I didn't mean it like that!"

"Right, right…" The two men continued arguing as they left the building, each hoping that their friends would be able to patch things up on their own at this hour. Castle wouldn't actually throw Beckett out, would he?


	3. Chapter 3

After Martha registered that the pounding she heard wasn't coming from inside her head, she emerged from her room to see what the problem was. "What's going on?" asked Alexis from the top of the stairs.

Martha paused in her rush to the door when she noticed the mess in the kitchen. "Richard?" When he offered no response to her question or the knocking, she waved her hands in the air and called back to Alexis. "Everything's fine, dear. Go back to bed."

The girl tiptoed downstairs anyways, her curiosity peeked by the smell of macaroni and the mysterious guest at the door. In the kitchen she took in the wake of what she recognized to be her father's cure for insomnia—the trick was to eat food that tasted good but ultimately made you feel nauseas so that you could pop a few painkillers and pass out. His particular poison was a box of Kraft and a tall glass of chocolate milk. Her gaze searched the kitchen and living area for the culprit as Martha fumbled with the deadbolt.

The muted cursing from the opposite side of the door did little to bolster Kate's courage, but she steeled herself nonetheless. It slipped, however, once the door was opened and Martha realized just who had woken them all up. The older woman's eyes narrowed in accusation. "Why, Kate…Whatever can I do for you?"

"Detective Beckett?" Alexis peeked around her grandmother. "Is something wrong?"

Kate balked, momentarily unsettled by the striking difference between the wide-eyed innocent expression on Alexis's young face and Martha, who seemed to be trying to figure out if looks really _could _kill. "I…I'm sorry, I realize it's late but I…" Again she faltered. How much did they know? Martha looked ready to slam the door in her face, but Alexis didn't seem angry. That was a good sign, right?

"Are you here for Dad?" Alexis looked around again, but there was still no sight of her father.

The detective's heart skipped a beat at the girl's words. It had always done that whenever she saw Castle with his daughter, or when he talked about her, or…she shook her head again, trying to remain on task. Martha cut her off, though, and yanked her inside by the elbow before closing the door a little more firmly than necessary. "She had better be."

"He told you?" she asked warily.

"Told who what?"

Martha nodded, both women ignoring Alexis.

"How much?"

"Enough to know that you've got your work cut out for you, and that this," she said, gesturing towards the mess in the kitchen, "is likely to go on for some time unless the two of you work things out."

"Wait, what's going on? Where's Dad?"

Martha turned Alexis towards the stairs. "Nothing to worry about, sweetheart. Go on back to sleep while Detective Beckett and I have a little chat."

"But I—"

"No buts. Bed." They waited for the grumbling teen to disappear upstairs. When she was out of sight, Martha rounded on Kate. "You sure have a lot of nerve showing up here in the middle of the night, after everything you've put my son through. He hasn't gone on a midnight binge like this since just after you were shot. We can't get him to eat more than a bite or two, and then he's up in the middle of the night because he can't sleep and he eats until he's sick. He won't even listen to Alexis when he gets like this; he just sits and stares at that screen, and you," she said, dropping onto the sofa as her ranting came to an end. "You…I can't even think straight. Well?"

Thoroughly chastised, Kate followed Martha's example and plopped down into the chair by the couch. "I'm sorry," she said from behind her hands, slumped forward with her elbows on her knees.

"'I'm sorry' isn't gonna cut it, kiddo. Not this time."

A single teardrop fell to the carpet. Kate watched it drop. "I had my reasons."

"I'm sure you did, but that's not what I'm concerned with at the moment. I want to know if you're going to tell that man the truth and put him out of his misery. The way you've both gone on the past few years…that's not how relationships are supposed to work. You either act, or you accept the fact that nothing is ever going to happen. So if you're here to offer up excuses or push this mess aside, I can tell you right now that we aren't going to let him go back. Not this time."

Kate's gaze was drawn to the door of his office. A dim light, barely noticeable, leaked out from the crack beneath it. "Is he in there?"

"Most likely, but I'm not sure what shape he's in."

"Should I come back in the morning?"

She watched Martha consult the nearest clock and the two women's eyes met. "It's probably best to get it over with now. But so help me—cop or not—if you put Richard through anything like this again I swear I'll include an entire act about you in my play, and it won't be pretty." With that, Martha took her leave and left Kate—only slightly shaken up—to face the proverbial music.

He didn't answer when she knocked on his office door, so she slipped in as quietly as she could and found him fast asleep in his desk chair, the light from his smart board casting harsh shadows across his face. It took a moment for her to realize what he'd fallen asleep to. The all-too familiar photographs and notes on the screen were from her mother's case. He'd organized them differently than she had on her own board, a detail that drew her attention. She tentatively touched Rick's image on the board and a number of lines sprouted out of the circle surrounding his picture. One line connected to her own image, two more to Martha and Alexis, and a fourth that led to a silhouette labeled _'Erik, OG'_. She tapped the man's image and the board rearranged itself again, this time centering around a triangle drawn between herself, Rick, and the mystery man. Behind her, Rick stirred in his sleep, making an odd snorting sound as his head lolled from one side to the other. There was no mistaking that he'd continued digging after advising her to set her mother's case on the back burner, but if he'd found a lead, why hadn't he shared that information with her. Unsure how to process that information, Kate pushed it aside for later and moved closer to study his face.

She'd only seen Rick's sleep face a few times, and then she'd been too afraid to be caught staring at him to really pay attention to what she saw. What she saw strengthened her resolve and she perched beside him on his desk. "Castle, wake up," she said, using her no-nonsense detective voice.

He shot up at her command, though he was facing the screen behind his desk and he had to turn around before he fully registered what had woken him. Kate watched his eyes light up as he realized that she was really there in his office before his brow furrowed, wondering _why_ she was there. Her heart sank as she saw the sign of remembrance dawn on his face—he was supposed to be angry with her. The dark circles beneath his bleary eyes did little to encourage her.

Rick looked back at the screen, sparing Kate a momentary glance. She pretended to slide into work mode for the time being. "Find anything new?"

He grabbed a remote from the desk and spun around to turn the screen off. "No."

"Care to tell me who 'Erik' is?"

"Leroux."

"Who?"

"Nevermind." Apparently he wasn't ready to provide her with anymore information.

"I didn't…I didn't know you were still looking into the case."

"'Cause I didn't tell you." He leaned forward and scrubbed his face with his hands. "What're you doing here? It's like…"

"…a little after 4, yeah. Gates kicked us out so…"

He checked his watch, glared at the floor, determined to look anywhere but at here. "So…?"

"You didn't show up today."

"Nope," he said, his lips popping at the end.

"You didn't call, either."

"Nope."

"Or text."

"Well, I figured that if anything interesting happened—you know, anything that I should know about—you'd fill me in. Right? Because you're pretty good at filling me in when I miss stuff."

Kate grabbed a pen and flipped it over in her hands, her eyes avoiding him as well. "Speaking of which, a few days ago you said something about missed opportunities, but you never explained what you meant."

"And you decided that _now_ was a good time to come ask me about it? I thought I already told you that it wasn't important."

"I know, but…tell me anyways."

Something in her voice, a vulnerability that rarely manifested itself, caught Rick's attention and forced him to look up. Their eyes met, and he wasn't sure how, but he knew what was she wasn't saying. "Why?"

Her eyes darted away from his for a moment before boring down on him, glistening with determination. "Because right now no one is shooting at us or planning on interrupting us and I want a chance to respond this time." She watched his mouth slide sideways as his eyes crunched and his brow furrowed; it was the look he adopted when he was weighing his options. While she was a little frustrated that he was silent for so long, she was also thankful that he was for once being a mature adult. The last thing they needed was another fight over thoughts and feelings that were never actually confirmed. "I promise I'll tell you whatever you want to know, but I want to know what you were going to say the other day."

Rick's brows scrunched even more. If she already knew what he was going to say, why was she dragging it out of him like that? "I think I've already said everything that needs saying."

"Rick…"

"No, you don't have the right to just come in here and—" Here his words failed him. He was angry with her, and she was asking him to say he loved her. He was supposed to shout and flail and break some glass and punch a wall or something. Wasn't that how people were supposed to react when they felt mad enough to…Rick palmed his face and slumped forward as the tears threatened to fall again. There was no way he was going to let her see him cry. Aware that his elbow was touching her thigh he jerked away, upsetting a mug of pens. As the pens clattered on the floor around him and the mug barely missed toppling off of the desk, he managed to regained control of himself. "I really believed it, you know." He couldn't peek out from his hands, but he could breathe again. Breathing was important.

Papers rustled as she shifted on the desk, but she refrained from touching him. "Believed what?"

Inhale. "That you didn't remember. That we had a chance." Exhale. "That one day you'd wake up and suddenly realize what was going on, and that after everything that's happened we'd…and…and then you…and I don't know, but somehow it still wasn't enough," he rambled. "None of it. I don't know if anything ever will be. I can't change how I feel, and I'm not sure you can do anything to change that."

That's what she'd been afraid of. She forced herself to continue breathing, repeating the exercises she'd perfected while managing her anxiety attacks. The last thing she needed was to pull one in his office right then. Unable to fully master her emotions, Kate sniffed as she edged herself off of his desk. Taking a final glance at his shaking form, she turned once more to the screen on the wall. It wasn't the right time to talk about the new lead, but she wondered if she would ever have a chance to talk to him again. _'And that after everything we'd…'_ What had he been about to say?

She managed two steps before his hand shot out and clenched the edge of her sweater. His face was still to the desk, an eye peeking out from his beneath his arm. The small hold he had on her appeared to comfort him. Kate allowed him to pull her closer, pull her until he was able to wrap his arms around her waist and bury his face in her stomach. Startled, she hesitated before tentatively stroking his hair. A long held breath burst from her lungs and a tightness in her chest she hadn't been aware of slowly dissipated. Rick tightened his hold but risked looking up. Her hands fell to his shoulders and remained there as he pulled her into his lap. His left arm clutched her like his life depended on it while his right hand snaked between them and cupped her cheek. Turning into his touch, Kate felt her eyes watering. If only he would look away and giver her time to get a hold of herself.

Maybe she could put some space between them, anything to break their intimate position. How had she gotten there? No. Intense blue eyes locked with brown and she couldn't escape if she wanted to. "I want you to listen to me, Kate." She shivered as he said her name and his grip tightened. She couldn't break eye contact, and she felt light-headed, as though she was being drawn out of her own body by his hypnotic gaze. "I don't care if you're scared and want to run away, or if you don't feel the same way, or if you're going to shoot me or kick me off your team or whatever else you're thinking about—I need you to listen. I. Love. You. Got that? No matter how many times you tell me to go away. No matter how many times you lie to me about what's really going on with you. No matter how many times you tell me that you aren't sure you'll ever be ready for the future that I want with you. I love you. I love you so much I feel like I'm freezing when I can't see your smile. And while I respect your choices, I don't want you to pretend like my words can be tossed aside like that ever again." Blinking and taking a deep breath, Rick loosened his hold and leaned back into his chair. "Now you can shoot me."

"I don't have my gun." And with that Kate buried her face into Rick's chest and allowed all of the pain and love and the joy and sorrow she'd been suppressing for the past two years to surface as she stained his grey t-shirt with her tears. Despite the fact that she'd known for months that he felt this way, his words struck a chord and she couldn't ignore how _right_ it felt for her to acknowledge them. Apart from the guilt she felt over the pain she'd caused them both, a great weight had begun to lift from her chest, and her arms tightened around his neck as she struggled to breathe. "I love you too," she sobbed into his neck, his skin dampened by her tears. "I thought—you said I messed it all up, that you wouldn't change your mind, I—"

Rick silenced her with a kiss. "Shh. What I meant was that I don't think there's anything you can do to make me _not_ love you. After everything we've put each other through, I'm not sure we can mess up any more than we already have."

She nodded against his neck. "I'm ready to be happy. Can we move past all of this and be happy now?"

"I…I think we can move past it eventually, but we've got some stuff to figure out first. Once I know that you don't doubt me anymore, then I will be happy."

"…I guess I won't doubt you anymore if you tell me how you really feel."

He quirked a brow. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. You said you love me, but…"

"But…"

"Well, I want to hear all of it. Even if you think it'll scare me, I need to know what you want. In the future. I need to know what I'm getting myself into."

The look in her eyes said she was dead set on having the conversation, but Rick tried once more to deter her. "Kate…this is a lot, really fast. Do you really want to get all of this out in the open now?"

She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and squirmed into a more comfortable position on his lap. "Yeah, I do," she sniffed, trying to prepare herself for what she was sure would send her over the edge. "You hide stuff from me and expect me to figure it out on my own, and I do the exact same thing. If we're going to see this through to wherever it ends, I want to get everything out in the open first."

"Alright, but after I say my piece I want you to remember that I warned you, and that I'm not letting you run out of here screaming."

Trying to lighten the mood, Kate mimicked him by raising an eyebrow. "Is it really that bad?"

"It could be. You want to see it through to the end but…well, I don't think it has to. End, that is."

She took another deep breath, strengthened by his words. "OK, well, consider the band-aid ripped off. I'm sick of going home to an empty apartment every night, and I'm sick of playing through scenarios of us doing dishes and folding laundry together. I want to know what that's like, but I'm also afraid that if we move too fast I'll do something that you can't forgive me for. No, I know what you said, but I'm still concerned. And I don't want to take you away from your family while we work this out because I know Martha and Alexis already hate me for –"

"They don't hate you," he said strongly.

"You don't know that."

"I think I do, but what else?" He needed her to keep going, because if she froze up he'd know she was still hiding from him.

She paused to collect her thoughts, worried that he would misunderstand her because the next issue was what worried her the most. "Rick, I don't…I'm not sure how to say it…"

Kate at a loss for words wasn't typically a good thing, but he braced himself and rubbed her back anyways. "Just say it. I won't interrupt you."

She caught his eye and made sure that he meant what he said. When would she learn to trust him? "Well, I…I don't know how to be anything other than a detective. I work late hours, eat too much take-out, and I drag you along with me because you're the only dose of fun in my life. I don't know how to turn off the part of my brain that makes me work like I do, and I thought that—that if I caught my mother's killer, then maybe I could let it go. That's why I didn't say anything after the shooting. You know me," she said, watching him nod in agreement. She pushed on, her gaze dropping to her lap as her hands twisted in her shirt. "You know that I tend to obsess, and that part of me isn't healthy for me or for you or—or for anyone else. I…I never thought about having a family, but with you there is a definite possibility and, and I don't want to fall apart and screw it all up. I want to say that I'm ready to have a life with you outside of the precinct, but I don't know how to do that. I don't know that I can." She wanted to make sure that he fully understood where she was coming from before he made his own confession.

When he finally nodded in understanding, she allowed herself to relax against him. "Then it sounds like there's a simple—albeit sour—solution."

"And that would be…?"

"Well, I stop working _every_ case with you. The gruesome fun ones, sure, but if you don't see me as much at work, then presumably you'd be more interested in coming home to see me than working late, right? You can obsess over me instead."

"Sounds like a lot of sacrifice on your part."

"Not really. I'll still see you as much, and there will obviously be more perks this way."

"And you see us living together? I would get to come home to you every day?" For a fraction of a second, Kate was worried that she'd sounded a little too excited about that, but the look on Rick's face told her that he'd been thinking along the same lines. "Paint me a picture, then. What is it you want?"

Rick buried his hand in her hair and massaged the base of her scalp with his thumb. "I see us agreeing to take it slow, but it's obvious after our first official date that we've taken enough time as it is. Gradually you spend more and more time here with me and the fam that it doesn't make sense for you to have your own place anymore, so you move in. Alexis is delighted that she won't need to hire someone to babysit me while she's away at school, and Mother is pleased to have another sensible lady to shop with." He paused, taking stock of her reaction. She chuckled in the appropriate places, but he was still having trouble figuring out if he was revealing too much too quickly. She noticed his hesitance and urged him to continue, though her hand tightened around his. "Not that I have a timeline for any of this, but I do know that I'd be an absolute moron not to eventually propose to you and give you that family you were talking about."

"But that's not what you want," she stated, though it came out more like a question.

"Huh?"

"The family is what I want, but what do you want? I mean, you already have a family, and…wait, that's not what I—"

"If you're asking me if I want to have kids, then yeah, I do. But only with you, and only if it's what you really want." Kate nodded. "But before you say anything, we don't need to decide any of that now. I just want you to know that I'm planning on you keeping me around for a while. And if I see you hiding in your work again, I'll call you out on it, just like you'll call me out if you feel like we're moving ahead too quickly. OK?" She nodded again. "Good. Now, if you're anywhere near as exhausted as I am, I say we move this upstairs and sleep through tomorrow."

Dressed in an oversized t-shirt and a pair of Rick's boxers and spooned against her partner, Kate drifted off to sleep in what she imagined had to be the most comfortable bed in the city.

"Love you, Kate."

"Mmm, love you too, Rick."

* * *

**I'm planning on at least two more chapters...and it's likely that the rating will be bumped up...**


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